The Curse (H. Academy Series #1)
Chapter 22: Strange Developments

“What do you mean you don’t have one?” I moved away from him on the bed and clasped my legs.

Leon shrugged, “I’m on contraceptives.”

“Yeah, and what about STDs?” I asked.

Subtle, rhythmical thudding between my legs sent a wave of disappointment through me. Leon sat on the bed, his cock twitching, and went through his hair with his fingers.

“I’m clean.” His lips tightened and something sparked in his blue eyes, something like offence.

I scoffed, “Yeah, like I’m going to believe that.”

“Seriously.” His gaze cut through me. “You want to use a truth serum on me?”

I raised my eyebrow, “Gladly.”

For a moment, I thought he was joking, but his eyes simmered with seriousness I haven’t seen before, causing a pang of guilt I didn’t understand in my belly. Wordlessly, he got off the bed and put on his pants while my hungry eyes followed him through the darkness. Leon yanked the drawer next to his table, pulled out ingredients and threw them on the table.

Reluctance grew within me like weeds and I swallowed the lump in my throat. There was nothing aside from his shirt to put on so I did that and dragged myself out of the bed. Leon turned on the table lamp on the bed and mixed the ingredients on the stone plate, his gestures and movements bordering on aggressive.

His behaviour confused me and I approached him tentatively, a reluctant whisper leaving my lips, “I could have fetched a condom.”

Someone at the party surely had one, but I was pretty sure the vibe between us turned into something else entirely by now.

Leon crushed the ingredients on the plate; dry foxglove flowers and psychoactive sage. I found the choice extremely interesting. Leon did not seem like the type of a mage who would focus on herbs and plants. Those required patience and studiousness. Leon was destructive.

He put both of his hands on the plate and mumbled words in Latin. Not truly trusting him, I opened up my senses towards the plate and my magic responded to the plants’ magic. He was making a truth serum right in front of my eyes.

A part of me wanted to run out of that room as quickly as possible. There were boundaries I wasn’t ready to cross with Leon, there were possibilities I didn’t want to have, like actually getting to know him.

The other part of me, however, felt intrigued and attracted.

Leon took the mixture between his fingers and ate it up, his eyes never leaving the table. My heart beat steadily in my chest, stuck somewhere between excitement and expectance.

When he swallowed the mixture, my mouth opened without my brain’s permission, “What are you doing?”

“Giving you the opportunity to ask me whatever you want.” Leon answered immediately and his expression gave no signs of protest or reluctance.

“Why?” I whispered.

“It might make you want to fuck.”

“Goddess!” I laughed out loud. “Would you really go this far?”

Leon glanced at me, a smirk gripping his lips, “Yes.”

I laughed some more. A wave of relief flooded me slowly but surely. Goddess, for a moment there I thought he would say something weird, like that he actually liked me.

“I’m sorry.” I snorted. “This is not a good reaction.”

“It’s alright.” Leon smiled and shrugged, “I know I’m a pig.”

As I leaned against the table, I made sure to touch his thigh with my leg, “So, I guess you’re really clean.”

“I knew you’d think otherwise.” Leon leaned against the backrest and pressed his thigh against me, “We can pick up where we left of any time.”

“Goddess, you must be getting tested all the time.” I laughed. “Or there’s some awesome spell that I don’t know about.”

Leon opened his mouth, but then, almost like he remembered he was under a truth serum, his face distorted into a small frown, “Well, no.”

“No what?” My laughter died out.

“I’m not getting tested exactly.” He swallowed, his eyes once again darting away from my face.

“And there’s no spell.”

I arched my eyebrow, “What then?”

Leon bit his lip for a few seconds before he spoke, “I haven’t slept with anyone except Bella for the past two years. Neither did she.”

My mouth dropped, “What?”

Leon grunted and looked at me, “It’s a deal, alright? No fucking. Making out, sure, touching, sure, bot no sex of any kind. It’s a deal. One I was about to break.”

As if someone slapped me in the face and slapped some sense into me, I took a step back, but before I could drown in anxiety, my phone buzzed and saved me.

Leon stared ahead, his eyes firmly glued to the wall while the phone buzzed silently between us. An unknown number.

I frowned at the screen. My father wouldn’t call me from an unknown number. It was either Amma or Morta probably losing their phone during the party. Or Dean and Eugene. I couldn’t remember whether they had my number.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Jade?”

My heart dropped to my gut.

Thar.

“Jade, where are you?”

Where did he get my number? Did something happen? Has someone died?

“What?” I asked like an idiot, desperate to know whether something happened.

“Where are you?” Thar sounded strange. “Are you in your room?”

Leon must have heard him through the phone, because he smirked.

“No.” I answered, unwilling to tell him exactly where I was. “Has something happened? Just tell me whether someone died, please, because you’re scaring the shit out of me.”

“No, no. No demons.” Thar mumbled and I finally managed to pin down the strangeness in his voice, “Please, tell me where you are.”

He was drunk.

Under the table’s limelight, Leon’s eyes sparked.

“I’m not in my room.” I swallowed the answer, hoping he wouldn’t ask again.

“Meet me.” He said, pushing my heart further into my gut. “Please. I want to see you.”

A stutter left my lips, “O-okay.”

Leon let out a small laugh, but loud enough for Thar to hear.

“Jade, where are you?” His voice reached a tone I hadn’t yet heard, a small, weak sound filled with some inexplicable tension.

I sighed, “I’m in the male dorms.”

Thar kept quiet for a few seconds, “Meet me, please.”

“Alright.” I nodded. “I’ll be out in two minutes.”

“Thank you.” Thar hung up.

Leon put his hands behind his head and laughed, “Are you gonna fuck a teacher now?”

“No.” I raised my eyebrow and picked up my clothes from the bed. “I’m sorry.”

Quickly, with shaky fingers, I put on my skirt and shirt.

“That’s fine.” Leon shrugged. “His voice made me go soft. Plus, how could I ever live up to Thar Adara?”

I stopped midway through buttoning up my shirt and bit my lip, “There’s nothing going on between Thar and me.”

Leon stood up and I heard the sound of the door opening, “I told you it’s fine. You can go back to your boyfriend and I’ll go back to my girlfriend.”

I faced him and took in a sharp breath. He gestured towards the door and I knew I’d feel goddamn awful if we had actually slept together and he had done this. But weirdly enough, it almost felt like I deserved it.

“I’m sorry.” I stepped out and looked at him again.

Leon smirked, “We’ll meet each other again, Jade, amidst some bitter disappointment.”

He slammed the door in my face, leaving me with a strange sensation rumbling in my belly. I honestly thought it wouldn’t be such a big deal, especially since I thought... Never mind, there were other things to worry about, like a very drunk, very forbidden professor waiting for me outside.

When Thar’s phone number popped up on my screen again, I almost stumbled down the stairs. What the hell has gotten into him?

Instead of answering, I burst through the back door, trying to avoid people still partying in the main lobby. The hour was slowly approaching 4AM and I had no idea where the time went. Perhaps I lost it dancing with Amma and Morta, or while I shamelessly ground against Leon on the same dancefloor.

Thar stood in the darkness, leaned against the wall next to the stairs, a bottle in hand and eyes jumping up to me as soon as I opened the door. An unspoken apology sparked in his night-coloured eyes, causing a flip in my stomach.

“There you are.” He put the bottle down and stumbled towards me, his usually graceful form terribly impaired. “I thought you were-”

“With Leon?” I swallowed my heartbeat.

Thar went through his hair and glanced at the ground, “I’m- I screwed up. I saw you and I took the bottle- I’m sorry, I just wanted- I needed to see you, uh, to know that you’re okay.”

My shoulders slumped, “What are you doing?”

Thar grabbed the half-wall to keep himself from falling, “I- I don’t know.”

One of the situations I have never imagined was being the sober and rational one in my interactions with Thar. It seemed as if he would always be the teacher and I would always be the student, but right now, I was the one who needed to remind him of our relationship.

“Thar.” My voice trembled as I said his name and his eyes darted towards me, filled with something heavy and intense, something resembling desire, “You’re my professor.”

“I know.” He nodded, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the concrete wall. “And I shouldn’t- it wasn’t my place to call you, but you- you went somewhere with him and-”

He was drunk and probably under a lust charm. This had nothing to do with me.

“Thar-”

He shook his head, “It’s my fault- I’m sorry.”

“No, this is...” My breath shook, “It’s alright.”

A part of me wanted him to come closer, I wanted him to kiss me. Just once, while he was drunk. It would be a good excuse, a small slipup, a mistake. Another part me knew I had just left Leon’s room and I couldn’t allow this, not tonight, not like this.

“You were with Leon.” Thar said suddenly, surprising me. “Goddess, I’m so fucking angry at myself for being jealous of him.”

My eyes widened and, like a fool, I spoke, “Nothing happened. I swear.”

Thar chugged from the bottle and glanced at me, “Your shirt is wrongly buttoned.”

“Shit.” I looked down.

In a hurry, I messed up the buttons.

“It’s okay.” Thar pushed himself off the wall. “I just- I just wanted to check if you were alright.”

I nodded, pushing down the embarrassment, “I’m alright.”

“Goddess.” Thar grunted. “I’m sorry, I- I don’t know what the fuck I wanted.”

“You wanted to check on me.” I said. “And I’m fine. We should go to sleep now and forget this happened.”

Thar’s pleading eyes found mine in the darkness, “Can we do that?”

I nodded, trying to convince myself I was telling the truth, “Yes. It’s okay. You’ve done nothing wrong and I, for once, behaved. Let’s get some sleep, please.”

Thar staggered ahead and I let him walk in front of me, knowing being close to him wasn’t a good idea. He stopped, grabbed the wall and glanced over his shoulder.

“I want to walk you to your room.”

My eyes widened, “Not a good idea.”

“I’m not- I’m not letting you go alone. Demons and- and stuff are out there.”

“Thar.”

He faced me, “No. I’m walking you to your room.”

“Thar.” I added a touch of deliberate sternness to my voice.

His eyes cleared then, the drunken fog disappearing. A nod, then another – and he left me there with nothing but a chaste peck on my cheek before he stumbled away. I wanted to know what he was thinking. Why now? Why tonight? But I was tired and confused and bitterly unsatisfied and returned to my room without even a second glance.

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